He was an average OF on an above average offensive team. Compare to his team, he sucked in 2007.
The issue is that the pitching has been getting beaten like a pinata.
The worst slump that Ortiz suffered was at the beginning of this season. When he started to be able to clean out the inside fastball, the slump was over in a big way. The problem is that he doesn't see too many insided fastballs to challenge him. Pitchers would rather walk him, because the X factor is not on deck. I'm not going to denigrate Youk, who is a great professional hitter, but he is not the threat to go deep that Manny is. If Youk doubles, Papi still doesn't score from first, so why pitch to him with 2 outs. That would be managerial incompetence. Ortiz would be pitched differently if Manny was behind him. The two guys back to back changed the whole dynamic of the game. If you don't understand that, then you haven't been paying attention for the last 5 years.